The Disgusting English Candy Drill

[Monte Davis]

Bryan Snyder wrote:

> this phrase... what is the pun? I'm missing something.

Hollander (at http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/jokespuns.htm ):

'The pun on "Forty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong" is traceable to the 
1927 song "Fifty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong" (Rose, Raskin and 
Fisher), popularized by Sophie Tucker, "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas." 
[also a movie w/ that title]The song satirizes the idea of the freedoms 
Americans were supposed to enjoy during the roaring twenties, freedoms 
circumscribed or forbidden by provincial convention (prudery or dress 
codes), by local laws (Statutes banning public displays of affection or 
allowing censorship) and by Federal Intervention (prohibition); and it 
offers as counterpoint the degree of freedom French society 
unflinchingly tolerated at the time (and does today), punctuating its 
assertions with the refrain "Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong." '


If I recall correctly, "fifty" became "forty" -- and the line became a 
catchphrase -- in a misquotation by Texas Guinan, a movie actress and 
speakeasy owner, when she couldn't get permission to take a mildly sexy 
review w/chorus girls overseas.